'Why are we wasting money on this when we could be spending it on that?' is a favourite argument of the partisan. It's usually spurious. But this collection of front pages does make you wonder how the Press came to be the arch-villains of the unholy trinity of politicians, police, Press. And that in turn prompts further questions about the extent and expense of the phone-hacking inquiry.First we have two peers (one Labour, one Conservative) under suspicion for rape. Then there is the disappearance of 114 files from a 1983 dossier alleging that a number of public figures were involved in child sex abuse. And finally we have more allegations against Rolf Harris, who was jailed for sexual assault on Friday.Putting Operation Yewtree and celebrity sex predators aside for a moment, let us remember that we also have the Cyril Smith allegations rumbling along in the background - thanks almost entirely to the Daily Mail - and suspicions about a minister in the Blair government that are being brought to light by the Daily Mirror. Those with short memories might also be reminded of the MPs' expenses scandal and the men who drained moats with our money, the women who declined to pay for their own bath plugs, the flipping and flopping of houses to avoid capital gains tax. We know about them thanks to the Daily Telegraph.These are the people running our country; the people who decided that the law wasn't strong enough to keep the Press in line, that a £5m public inquiry, followed by a royal charter, to set new parameters of behaviour was required.MPs accepted after the expenses scandal - without the benefit of a public inquiry - that they couldn't be trusted to police themselves, so an independent parliamentary standards authority was created. It's made a huge difference. In 2009, the year of the scandal, MPs' expenses totalled £95.4m. In the year to last September, the total was £98m.The police, particularly the Metropolitan force, meanwhile remain mired in corruption allegations that any number of public inquiries and new brooms at the top have been unable to stamp out. They have failed properly to investigate murder, wholesale sexual abuse and assorted other crimes - including phone hacking at the News of the World. Stephen Lawrence's killers were finally brought to justice not through dogged detective work, but in large part because of the law-breaking bravery of Stuart Steven when editor of the Mail on SundayEight out of ten of today's front pages* are devoted to historic crimes and alleged crimes involving men in high places abusing vulnerable women and children; offences dating back to the 60s, 70s and 80s; crimes and alleged crimes that were widely known about, yet which troubled neither police nor politicians until very recently.Police operations looking into old journalistic misdeeds are ongoing, and the Daniel Morgan inquiry is unlikely to do anything other than give sections of the Press an even worse name, but SubScribe has not so far heard any suggestion that journalists were involved in sex abuse rings or systematically defrauding the taxpayer.Those who believe that the state should play any part in determining how the Press is regulated might care to show how police behaviour has improved since the establishment of the IPCC in 2004 and how MPs have curbed their excesses since IPSA was set up in 2009.There are chancers and criminals in every walk of life, but they tend to gravitate mostly towards areas of power, influence and money. So a few police officers are corrupt, a few MPs are criminally greedy, a few celebrities are sex abusers, a few journalists are unethical. It's all a matter of proportion.If the Press is allowed to do its job, if good people are attracted to public life, and if the law is allowed to function, we'll come out on the right side - eventually. Then we can work together to defeat the financial sharks who rob us all.*The other two focus on terrorism; it's Serious Sunday.

Liz Gerard

New year, new face: it's time to come out from behind that Beryl Cook mask. I'm Liz Gerard, and after four decades dedicated to hard news, I now live by the motto "Those who can do, those who can't write blogs". These are my musings on our national newspapers. Some of them may have value.